Addison's Disease Is a Risk Factor for Hip Fracture

FRIDAY, Feb. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Clinically diagnosed and undiagnosed cases of Addison's disease (AD) are associated with hip fractures in patients aged 30 years or older, with the highest risk in women aged 50 years or younger, according to a study published online Jan. 19 in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

Sigridur Björnsdottir, M.D., from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and colleagues examined data collected from 1964 to 2006 pertaining to 3,219 patients without prior hip fracture who were diagnosed with AD aged 30 years or more and 31,557 age- and sex-matched controls. The primary outcome was time from AD diagnosis to hip fracture.

The investigators observed hip fractures in 6.9 percent of AD patients compared with 2.7 percent of controls. Patients with AD had a higher risk of hip fracture than did controls (hazard ratio [HR], 1.8), independent of sex, age, or calendar period of diagnosis. Women aged 50 years or younger diagnosed with AD had the highest risk of hip fracture (HR, 2.7). There was a positive association between hip fracture and undiagnosed AD (odds ratio [OR], 2.4), with the highest risk in the year preceding diagnosis (OR, 2.8).

"A higher risk of fractures is likely to impair quality of life and merits prevention in AD patients," the authors write.